TSA confiscates 4th gun in 3 days at Reagan National Airport

Transportation Security Administration officers said Friday that they’ve confiscated the fourth gun in three days from a security checkpoint at Reagan National Airport. WTOP

I have said it before, and I will say it again, if you own a tool, especially one that costs $1000, you should know intimately where it is. I have less expensive tools in my bench, and I know where they are. This is a tool that can kill someone and you forgot it was in your bag? This is a tool that the TSA is actively looking for and you forgot it was in your bag? And you have a permit?

Frankly, at this point, if you use the excuse I forgot it was in there you should lose your permit for at least a year, on top of all the fines you are rightly entitled to. Do it more than once, and you should lose your ability to own a weapon, full stop. You are clearly not a responsible gun owner.

This Could Stop Now

It has been unusually warm in Northern Virginia. As you may know, most of the south (NoVA is considered to be in the south) is under a heat dome, and temperatures are warmer than usual. But we have passed the point of hot enough for you and progressed to enough already!

Let me explain.

The DC region has a standing record of 21 days in a row of above 90-degree temperatures. Forget the feels like (that is with the humidex 1 included. This is the raw bulb temperature. Because of two days below 90° (it only got up to 89° even though the humidex put us into the middle 90s) in the middle of the streak, we have not broken the consecutive day record - yet. But since June 25th, again except those two blustery cold days, every day has seen temperatures in the mid to upper 90s and little to no rain. Sure, we get a gully washer for ten minutes that causes more damage than penetration, but that is about all. And it is expected to continue until the end of this week. Almost six weeks of 90+ temperatures. And it is not August yet, which is when our hottest temperatures are experienced (and higher humidity). I am not sure my body can take much more of this. Much less my air conditioner.

Stay cool!

  1. The humidex is an index number used by Canadian meteorologists to describe how hot the weather feels to the average person, by combining the effect of heat and humidity. The term humidex was first coined in 1965. The humidex is a nominally dimensionless quantity based on the dew point. Wikipedia

Can We Do The Same For Pastrami and Bacon?

Industry wary of alternatives tries to protect a word: meat | WTOP

Nebraska lawmakers will consider a bill this year defining meat as “any edible portion of any livestock or poultry, carcass, or part thereof” and excluding “lab-grown or insect or plant-based food products.” It would make it a crime to advertise or sell something “as meat that is not derived from poultry or livestock.”

As more and more marketing people try to get the general public to fall for their new and improved usually faux healthy product, like nut water, or margarine, instead of milk, or butter, the blurring of the lines between what we know it is and what the marketing doublespeak wants us to believe it is will only get broader.

Even foods that should be clearly delineated, like bacon, seem to now come with qualifiers, and the qualifiers are rather odd. I have yet to encounter the full shift I have seen with coffee (you now have to explicitly say you want your coffee hot), but I do not think we are far away. When I order pastrami, being asked to define whether I want beef or turkey probably makes several in the smoked meat business cringe. Bacon now comes as pork (the so far default), turkey, or tofu (when you are eating something called tofu, bacon is the last thing that comes to mind).

Many people have decided to cut meat out of their diet. That is just fine. However, please, do not confuse your need to follow rabid diet models with the public's need to be able to identify their food. Meat only comes from animals, milk from cows or goats, and keep your ground up nuts out of my water. I need them for my Chex Mix.